Identity Crisis: Interim
by mak5258
Summary: Bits and pieces of plotline and fluff spanning the time between the end of Identity Crisis roughly July 2009 to the beginning of the sequel.
1. Chapter 1: Jason Kent

_Jason Kent_

When I was thirteen, my parents bought me a mountain bike and a map of Metropolis for my birthday. I'm sure they gave me other things—they always did birthdays very well—but it was the bike and the map that I coveted.

I would pack my school backpack, stuffing the map in as well even though I'd memorized it, and disappear for summer afternoons. The nice thing about having Superman for a dad, at that point, was that he could find me in a few heartbeats if he needed to, so he and Mom didn't worry much about me going off on my own. It worked the same for me finding home; if my map ever seriously led me wrong, I could just follow the heartbeats home. Home is very literally where the heart is for me.

Most people I came across on my bike trips—which were extended shortly before my fourteenth birthday when I acquired a Metropotransit pass for trains and buses, which had convenient spots for my bike—thought my parents were negligent. Most people I came across, though, didn't know that I was basically a mini-Superman. That was the secret that got me through middle school and high school, though; _knowing_ that I wasn't the geek my classmates called me. It was hard to take the taunts seriously when the taunt-ers all got stars in their eyes when they saw my dad on TV, or when my mom arrived for parent-teacher conferences.

I used biking as my method for achieving Zen. I could've biked across the continental U.S. without getting properly tired, but that wasn't the point. I escaped the house, full of people—Molly was born at the end of July in 2009, then Jo in December 2011, then Brigit in February 2013, then Becca in October 2017, and there was always Mom and Dad, Jimmy from the _Planet_, Aunt Lucy—and their noises, and found internal quiet in the methodical roar of Metropolis streets. The whir of my tires, the hum of electricity, the muffled sounds of people in the buildings lining the road, the click and rush of the trains on their tracks.

I got to know Metropolis very well that way. In a way that not even Dad knows the city, and he knows it very well. I made friends, some of them my parents, Kryptonian super-powers or not, wouldn't approve of, some they would. My childhood was messy enough without them knowing about the card games in back rooms where I could listen to older guys talk.

My teenage years passed predictably. I was too much like Dad not to be a geek in high school. I was in the marching band—snare drum—and ended up dating Madeline Warner, a clarinet player. When I got my driver's license I was allowed to use the car that was officially Dad's, which meant I got to use it all the time because he never did. My driver's license might as well have been a tattoo on my forehead that read 'chauffeur,' seeing as I was suddenly the shuttle driver for all my sisters. Lucky me. The one bonus to that was that Mom or Dad would put gas in the car when I'd been driving Molly or Brigit around a lot—otherwise, for to and from school, I had to, which meant I needed a job. Mom took about four hundred pictures when Madeline and I went to prom (Molly laughed at me).

I was hired at the Shattered Barrel—which was actually a jazz club of sorts, for dinner and dancing; it could've come straight out of the Roaring '20s, and most of the clientele were probably born around then—as a cook. My English teacher, Mr. Redig, was a regular who knew a guy-who knew a guy-etc. I didn't hate it, and they paid well. Then the pianist for the band had a heart attack and had to quit (this being the year that I was finally thinking about quitting with piano lessons). They couldn't find a stand-in for the first shifts he would miss, and Mr. Redig just happened to overhear the conversation and remember that I was in band and hadn't I played the piano for the choir that one time?

Being a jazz pianist for a group that had been playing together for longer than I had been alive was tough. They were all retired from their careers, so they spent most of their free time working on new numbers. The raise was excellent, but it was hard work—practice from the moment I could get to the Barrel after school to the moment we had to go put on our tuxedos (Mom thought I was _so_ cute; Molly laughed at me) for the dinner show. I did my homework on my breaks, though, as the pianist, I got the shortest breaks, covering for the rest of the band while they took breathers by playing a bit of quiet piano music while people ate. At the end of the night, it was a few more hours of practice (the guys had rearranged most of their schedule so that I could attend, it just meant that I didn't sleep much), then I'd run home just shy of midnight, getting in as much ribbing as I could about their being much too old to be up past nine.

I did a lot of growing up while I worked at the Shattered Barrel. The late middle-age and older crowd didn't much tolerate seventeen-year-old-boy crap, and they weren't my parents or relatives so they didn't have to be nice about it. I learned a lot from them.

That's not to say I didn't have my rebellion. There was about half a year, from a few months before I turned eighteen 'til after Christmas that year, when I didn't want to deal with my parents. It wasn't an "I'm eighteen, I know what I'm doing, I'm an adult don't tell me what to do" sort of rebellion so much as a "I have all these amazing abilities and I've proven that I'm a responsible person and you still don't trust me to use them" sort of rebellion. Ironic as it is, I lived in Kansas for awhile, flying halfway across the country every morning and every night. Grandma Martha had a very "boys will be boys" reaction, Dad paced a lot, Mom huffed, my sisters decided they were vindicated in their belief that I was indeed absolutely insane.

Then I graduated from high school and the real trouble started. I had overcome my issues with not being allowed to use my Kryptonian quirks for the good of humanity and made up with Mom and Dad, and life was just about perfect. I loved my job, I had some great friends (more than half of them were over the age of fifty, but I didn't really care), and I was very comfortable where I was. I was expected to move on to college, though.

So I went to Metropolis University, living at home instead of the dorms, and arranged my schedule so that I'd still be able to work at the Shattered Barrel. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I took the general requirements and hoped something would strike my fancy. Nothing did. I hated it. I wanted to drop out.

Then Grandma Martha died. She went in her sleep on November 17, 2022. She was well into her nineties, had lived a long, full, happy life, buried a husband and a daughter before her, saw her adopted son marry the woman of his dreams, and lived to see all five of grandkids born.

It hit Dad very hard. He was International Editor at the _Planet_ by then and it was all he could do to put his section together every evening, his mind off in Kansas. He and Mom couldn't well both take time off, or at least not much. I didn't really tell anybody, I just put in my notice at the Shattered Barrel, dropped out, and went to Smallville.

I took over handling the estate, putting everything in order. She'd recently had her will all settled, had paid off the farm and land long ago, and basically been well set. She'd left everything to Dad, with notes, of course, about which of his daughters got which bits of her favorite, expensive jewelry and the like. That was no surprise. I handled the funeral arrangements, and very suddenly everything was set.

After the wake, I went to the barn to escape the people again. That was where I met Danielle Turner, Lana Lang's daughter. She was dressed for the funeral, standing in the barn in an old fleece jacket talking to the horses. Apparently she'd been tending to the horses for Grandma Martha for years. She was devastated; Grandma had been a very dear friend.

It took some convincing—shouting, actually, when it came to Mom—but I moved to Smallville permanently after that. Dad signed the house and land over to me, and suddenly I had a farm to run. A farm with seed already purchased for the next season's crop, with a small herd of cattle and three horses, a coup full of chickens, four goats, one rabbit, and an uncountable collection of barn cats. I had only vague ideas of how to run a farm, and a few ideas bouncing around in the back of my brain for changes I'd like to make.

I called Danielle. She made a binder.

I soon discovered that Danielle was the most interesting person I'd ever met. She absolutely loved horses. It was what had drawn her to the Kent Farm in the first place, beginning to tend Grandma's horses when she was twelve or thirteen when her mom had found out Grandma was looking for somebody to take care of them or she was going to have to sell them.

She also loved dragons. She collected little glass dragon figurines, which was convenient because it was always a safe gift idea. She also loved Michael Jackson—she did a mind-bending moonwalk—and painting, jazz,bad science fiction movies. She was plump by conventional standards, but then, I can fly, so convention hardly entered the equation. She had a grainy sort of singing voice that put anyone to shame, and she was patient. She was also sarcastic, quite cynical, and every bit of her patience was due to her stubborn force of will.

It wasn't long before I went from thinking Danielle was interesting to being completely besotted. She didn't play hard-to-get so much as innocently oblivious, raised in a society that told her girls of her body type didn't catch the eye of guys like me. It drove me mad once I figured out why, despite the signs that she liked me—the quickening pulse, the slight flush, the averted gaze, flirting back—she ignored me (at least romantically). I'd had to have a long conversation with Mom before I realized what was going on, and even then it took a visit from Molly—who 'casually' mentioned to Danielle that I was madly in love with her—before she finally consented to go on a real date with me.

It was another several months before she felt secure enough that I knew I could propose and she wouldn't say 'no' on the simple fact that she wouldn't believe I was being sincere. I can never decide if it's modesty or a self-esteem issue I should really be concerned about. It didn't help that I was a bundle of nerves, having gotten permission from Dad to tell her the Secret if she said yes.

"Marry me," I blurted, sitting across from her at the kitchen table, the same one that my dad carved his name into when he was a kid.

"What?" she asked, setting her teacup back on the saucer with more of a clatter than usual. Her pulse was racing, her breath shallow and nervous. She looked fabulous—we'd had dinner at TGI Friday's, a treat to ourselves and we'd dressed up a bit to make an occasion of it. I wore knakis and a shirt that wasn't plaid; she wore a knee-length pinkish-orange skirt and a white blouse, with her hair down. She never wears her hair down, but it always looks nice.

"Will you marry me, Danielle?" I couldn't hear her heart anymore because my own was thundering in my ears. If I was a normal person, I would've been sweating bullets.

"What do you want to marry me for?" she asked in that small, shy voice she never uses with me anymore, looking down and away, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.

_Are you Superman's son or not?_

I got up and walked around the table so that I could crouch at her side. It's not exactly the on-one-knee approach, but conventional was never our style.

"I love you," I tell her. It isn't the first time I've said it, and she's told me she loves me before, but we don't say it all that often, and I think I should probably make a point to tell her more often. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That's why I want to marry you."

She immediately burst into tears. I hate it when she does that, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Is she crying because I've upset her and I should just go? Is she crying because she's happy and I should probably smile and give her a hug? Is she crying because somebody else upset her and I should give her a hug and then go beat the crap out of them?

She solved the problem by throwing herself at me, knocking me right back onto my ass on the kitchen floor. Her tears gave way to laughter quickly, and she began kissing every inch of my face she could get her lips near.

"Is that a yes?" I asked when I could finally move my jaw again.

"Yes!"

I'm fairly certain my cheeks would be sore if they could be I smiled so big. I had the ring in my pocket—I'd been carrying it around for days by then. It was a silver band with a single emerald set in it.

"This was Grandma Martha's," I told her, holding it up for her to see, shifting a bit so that we were more comfortable sitting on the floor together, her curled partially in my lap. "Jonathan Kent gave it to her when he asked her to marry him."

"Oh, Jason," she sighed, holding out her hand so that I could put the ring on her finger, I didn't though, not yet.

"See here," I say, pointing to the inside of the band where_ All My Love_ was etched into the silver. She nods. "I mean it. I love you so much."

"I love you, too," she says, but she's suspicious now, she's looking at me like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop, like she's sure I changed my mind.

"Danielle, I need to tell you something before I put this ring on your finger. I don't want you making any promises without all the information," I said, hating that I sounded just as worried as I felt. _Now who's the one with self-esteem issues?_ I askedc myself at the same time that another voice in the back of my head, the one that sounds like Brigit at her bitchiest, says _She'll run. Who wants to marry a human-alien hybrid?_

"What do you need to tell me?" she asked, withdrawing a bit.

I've thought the scene through a thousand times. It ends differently every time, sometimes she loves me anyway, sometimes she just can't take the thought of sharing her life with a part-alien. Sometimes she goes running for the police or the media.

"Actually, I should probably just show you," I said, helping her to her feet and leading her out the back door. It's a cool, clear night; perfect for star-gazing.

"You're making me nervous," she said, her tone only half joking.

"Sorry, I don't mean to," I said, not sure how to make it easier for her. "Will you come here?"

Timidly, she makes her way over to me, standing on our little back patio under the stars. I try to smile reassuringly, but I'm too nervous to pull it off. "Stand on my feet and close your eyes," I tell her.

"Jason," she sighed sharply, putting her hands on her hips and pursing her lips at me. I want to kiss her, but I know better. "You're being very odd."

"I know, I'm sorry… Just, do it, please?"

She sighed again, but came over to me and stood on my feet, gently so as to not squish my feet, not that it matters. She allowed me to wrap her arms around my chest. "Eyes closed?"

"Eyes closed," she said, and I can just feel her rolling those closed eyes.

"No peeking."

I rise into the air. I've never done this with another person, not like this. When the girls were little, I used to fly them around the house and things, but it was all in fun, not like this. This is how Mom and Dad used to go flying, the romantic stuff. I had a single, horribly embarrassing conversation with Mom (because all my conversations with Mom these days start with me asking embarrassing questions and being embarrassed about getting answers that she doesn't seem to mind in the least) about how best to approach flying with the woman I'm in love with, seeing as she has the most experience being wooed via flight.

Once we're high enough that we can see _everything_, the entirety of Smallville proper and the surrounding farms, the moon and stars giving us twinkling light high above, the pair of us bathed in the clean darkness of the sky, I pull back from her a bit.

"You can open your eyes now," I said, and suddenly my voice sounds like it normally does, confident and deep like Dad's—it's always been odd to know that I sound just like Dad, especially since he alters his voice so often. I can only suppose that, since there's no going back at that point, there was no use being so nervous.

"Jason!" she squealed when she got a good look around, throwing herself forward to clutch more tightly to me. "We're in the air!"

"We're flying," I agree.

"We're _flying_?! How're we _flying_?"

"Well, _I_'m flying, I should say," I say, prattling on like the geek I am. "But I've got you, don't worry."

"Don't _worry_? We're hovering hundreds of feet up in the air with no support and all you've got to say is _don't worry_?!"

"Would you like to go back down?"

"I don't want to _fall_!"

"Sh," I say, attempting to soothe her, rubbing circles on her back. She relaxed ever so slightly, but her grip on my shoulders was still incredibly tight.

Slowly, I floated down closer to the ground, spinning us slowly as we went, turning so that she would get a great view of the area as we descended. By the time we're three hundred feet from the patio, she was just standing in the circle of my arms and looking around, awed.

"Now I know what Lois Lane feels like," she whispered when we finally touched down, then she startled. "Lois Lane! Your mother! _Your mother slept with Superman_?!"

"Superman is my father, yes," I said quietly, guiding her back into the house and to the warm tea waiting.

"But… but…"

"Clark Kent is Superman," I explained, urging her out into the living room and down onto the couch, where I could sit next to her, but not too close, I still didn't want to frighten her.

"What?"

"Clark Kent is Superman, and Clark Kent is my father."

"… If Clark Kent is your father, and Superman is your father, then Clark Kent is Superman?"

"Yeah," I replied after a moment, not sure about her phrasing, exactly, but rolling with it.

"Holy _shit_."

"This is what I needed you to know before you agree to marry me," I told her, taking the ring out of my pocket again and holding it between us. She seemed to remember that I'd just proposed to her, promptly falling back into blinking, gaping surprise. "I know it's kind of overwhelming, springing these two huge things on you all in one night, but, even though my dad's from a different planet, I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"I've _met_ your dad, Jason," she said, eyes narrowing. "There's no _way_ he's Superman. He's all… awkward. Don't get me wrong he's a great guy, but he's just not… Superman."

I couldn't help but smile at that. Dad's way too good at being a bumbling idiot sometimes.

"You should meet him for-real sometime. He's different."

"Wow, Jason. I just… seriously?" she blinked at me again, flopping back against the couch.

"Yes."

"This is amazing."

I could only shrug. I'd been able to fly since I was five, after all.

"So you have all his… powers?"

"Yes."

"No way."

Suddenly agitated, I set the ring on the coffee table and stood up, pacing across the living room. I took a letter opener, put my hand down on the coffee table in front of her, next to the ring, and stabbed the letter opener down onto the back of my hand. She yelped, but then froze when she saw that the letter opener had bent horribly instead of piercing my hand. I straightened it back into its proper shape effortlessly. Next, I crossed my legs and hovered midair, brushing the hair out of her face with a controlled blast of very cool air. Then I put my feet down again and bent to lift the couch, with her on it, up so that her ankles were at my eye-level. She yelped again, clinging to the armrest until I put it down.

"Holy shit."

I stood by for another moment, feeling her eyes on me, hoping against hope that she'd be able to accept me, hating that she was staring. I looked down at my shoes; they were just the same as always.

"I love you, Danielle," I eventually whispered. "I know it's kind of overwhelming, and I won't rush you," I said. Her heart was racing. "Take as long as you need."

Then I left. I had planned to go up to bed, but once I got into the bedroom that we'd been sharing for almost a year I couldn't bear the thought of crawling into bed alone, and I didn't want to force her to share a bed with the half-alien. I climbed out the window and took flight, going higher than I normally did so that the air was cold around me.

I flew once around the world, very slowly. I was wasting time. I listened for people that I knew as I passed over, but I didn't pay much attention to what was going on. Life continued very normally back on the surface of the planet.

Finally, I was within hearing range of Smallville again. To my surprise, Danielle was in the bedroom but she wasn't asleep. She was standing at the window, leaning out over the garden, searching the skies. She was wearing Grandma's ring on a very significant finger.

Without really thinking, I shot from the sky, almost losing my clothes to the slipstream, but remembering to slow down to a more proper speed just in time. It was my best shirt; Danielle would kill me if I let it disintegrate…

The thought was so absurd I almost laughed.

"Jason?" Danielle asked when she caught sight of me as I streaked from the sky, probably looking more like a freak than ever.

I stopped outside the window, hovering in standing position at her eye level as she looked me over. "It's me," I said, not sure what else to say. She hesitated only a moment.

"You'd better get in here. Somebody might see."

"Yes, dear," I muttered. My eyes darted to hers—it was a long-standing joke between us, but I'd just proposed, and I wasn't sure it was appropriate… but she was smiling. Widely.

We stood awkwardly in the bedroom for a moment. She'd dressed for bed, with her flannel pajama pants and ratty old t-shirt under the fluffy blue bathrobe I gave her for Christmas last year. The ring caught the moonlight just perfectly where she stood.

Finally, I reached down and took her left hand from her side, bringing it up so that I could kiss the ring. "Does this mean you're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad?"

"I'm half alien?"

"I'm half Canadian."

I couldn't help but laugh at that, pulling her into my arms, practically floating with happiness when she came readily.

"So you'll marry me?"

"Yes, I'll marry you."

I beamed at her, kissing her soundly. It wasn't until we broke apart only for her to jerk closer to me that I realized we were hovering. I flushed immediately.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," she said, relaxing ever so slightly in my arms, looking down. We were a good two feet above the floor, leaving only a few inches between my head and the ceiling. Lucky the Kents had always tended to be tall and therefore had built their house with high ceilings. "It's kind of…"

"Totally weird?"

"No," she glanced up at me sharply. "It'll just take some getting used to, is all."

"You really don't mind?"

"I love you. I don't really care if you can fly or not."

I beamed at her and proceeded to fly her over to the bed, where we celebrated our engagement into the wee hours of the morning.


	2. Chapter 2: Mitchell Hinkley

**SUPERMAN_SAYS: YOUR SOURCE FOR ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING SUPERMAN**

_When I was sixteen, the Kryptonian known as Superman returned to Earth. I was fascinated by the righteous flying man, the personification of all the superheroes in the comic books that filled my days even then._

_I started Superman Says as a blog on , filling it with links to interviews with the Man of Steel, pictures, video clips, and sound bites. That site still exists, ready for fans to comment and add links._

_However, in 2027, Wolfgang Turner of the _New York Times_, Superman's unofficial press agent since 2008, passed away. Superman contacted me in May of that year, and Superman_ was created as a free, accessible source of official, Superman-authorized information on his rescues and opinions. _

_Everything on this website has been authorized by Superman. All interviews—reactions to world events, rescues, pop culture, fan inquisitions and just about anything else imaginable—and media links were approved by the Man of Steel. _

…Mitchell scanned down to the bottom of the welcome-letter-style opening of the familiar site…

_Sincerely, Mitchell Hinkley_

The website was designed in the primary colors of Superman's suit. The background was cerulean; the lettering across the top of the page was the brightest red. When the cursor was moved over a link, it was highlighted in yellow.

Links to old interview archives—Lois Lane had emailed Mitchell digital copies of her original tapes, even—articles, press conference appearances and the like were arranged down the left side of the page. The central panel was a constantly updated flow of information related to Superman's latest rescues and worldwide appearances. The far right featured tabs for all the latest Superman news—audio files of his latest interviews, links to newspaper articles in which he featured, the stylized "S" symbol in the top corner of the page that led to an "Easter Egg" feature of sorts, where random stock information—such as Superman's Oscar picks, shoe size, photo album, etc.—was projected, different with each viewing.

It was a very popular sight.

Mitchell Hinkley hadn't considered himself a super-fan when he was sixteen. He'd been interested in something, and his mother had been after him to get a few hobbies. It had turned into his life.

He'd been more surprised than anybody when Superman knocked on his dorm room door wearing street clothes—though he did have the famous suit on beneath the jeans and white button-down shirt—and asked, ever so politely, if he had time for a proposition. He'd been eighteen, and, terrified as he'd been, he hadn't been about to turn _Superman_ away.

It turned out, Superman preferred to be called Kal-El, his name from Krypton, during regular conversation, though, showing wit, of which Mitchell had been completely unaware, he didn't think calling himself by that name would've sold as many papers.

Once he had gotten over the sheer shock of Superman sitting in the desk chair while Mitchell himself sat on the bed, both of them drinking insta-coffee amidst the stacks of books and newspapers, video game paraphernalia and dirty laundry spilling out of the basket in the corner, Mitchell had still been shocked. The Man of Steel himself expressed interest in joining his blogging effort, making the site official, getting a real domain.

There had never been any doubt that it would be a huge success.

"I am fully aware that people want to know what I think about things. In the past, I have filled that interest by answering reporters' questions on-site and being interviewed by Lois Lane or Wolfgang Turner. It occurred to me, though, that the internet is the best way to get information to people. It's free, it's easily accessible, and I can have a measure of control over it."

"You want to censor what people know about you?"

"I wouldn't put it as such," Superman, Kal-El, had responded calmly while Mitchell tried to wrap his brain around the fact that he'd just snapped at Superman. "I would just like there to be an official place for official information, the whole story. Nothing could be taken out of context or misunderstood. Or, at least, it is less likely to be taken out of context or misunderstood than otherwise."

And so it had begun.

Mitchell had handed over the reins on his project to his former roommate and gone about securing himself a domain, hardly believing it was all real. If Kal-El hadn't dropped by for coffee and an update every few evenings, he wouldn't have believed it.

The website had come together relatively quickly. Superman was more involved in the process than Mitchell had expected. It was an odd sight to return to his dorm and see the Man of Steel sitting in his office chair, typing. He was the fastest typist Mitchell had ever seen.

The site took form. Superman provided copies of his first interviews on Earth as well as many significant ones that came later. Lois Lane cooperated more than her reputation suggested she would, writing a few things for the site, helping with the links to her old articles at the _Daily Planet_. The fun information in the random generator had actually been Kal-El's idea. Mitchell had spent most of the process in complete shock.

Even several years after he'd graduated from college—majoring in Journalism with a Graphic Design minor—when the advertising had picked up properly, paying his living expenses and the costs of the website and he'd realized that he'd never have to apply for a 'real job' at a newspaper like he'd planned, it hadn't quite clicked. Every time he saw Superman—in uniform or dressed down—it didn't feel real. When he met Lois Lane for the first time, it had still felt like a weird dream and he'd wake up at any moment back in his dorm room, late for his Modern History exam.

"I know what you mean," Lane had said when he'd, in a self-deprecating sort of way, told her about the dream-like quality of his daily life. "It doesn't seem real to me most of the time, either, and I've known him for going on 30 years."

* * *

Disclaimer: The standard 'I don't own Superman!' disclaimers apply. Additionally, I don't own superman_, or even know if such a domain exists.


	3. Chapter 3: Becca Kent

Dear Diary— My name is Rebecca Josephine Kent, Jo Kal-El. My dad's name is Clark and my Mom's name is Lois. I have one brother named Jason, and he is married to Danielle and they live in Kansas on a farm. Jason is the oldest so he's the only one who's married. My oldest sister's name is Molly, she's 8 years older than me. Joanna is the next older, she's 6 years older than me. And Brigit is next and she's 4 years older than me. And today is my birthday and I'm 9. We had a grand party at Jason and Daneille's house in Kansas, with cake and ice cream. Everybody managed to come, but Molly was late because she had to work, but that's okay. She gave me a big hug as soon as she got there and picked me up, flying us up around the house, over the roof. I laughed the whole way, and Mom shouted at her to bring me back so that I could open presents. I've always liked Grandma Martha's farmhouse and the barn and all the land around it. She died when I was three, so I didn't get to meet her a lot, but it feels very good to be here. There's so much space. I always go on walks, and nobody minds how long I'm gone so long as I stay on the property, which isn't hard to do because it's all fenced in. I think this diary is my most favorite present. It's from Danielle. I don't know where she bought it—it doesn't look like anything I've seen at any of the stores we go to at home. It's got a red leather cover with a fancy sort of latch on the side. All the ones at the store seem to have _diary_ or _my diary_ or something on the front in shiny letters, and I don't really like them. This one is just plain red cover. Mom says writing in diaries is supposed to be therapudic. She's always going on about all of us, me and Jason and Molly and Joanna and Brigit, needing therapy. I don't know if she's joking or not most the time.

* * *

Dear Diary—Lots of things happened this week. After we got back home from Kansas—Molly flew me, so it was a quick trip but not very exciting—everything got to normal very fast. Dad flew off to somewhere to help people while Mom unpacked us. Brigit threw a fit about leaving her left clog at Jason's and wouldn't relax until Mom called Jason and he brought it for her. Mom was angry with Brigit after that, as usual.

Joanna and I snuck into the office and watched Dad on TV. Mom caught us and it only made her madder. We were all sent to bed even though Dad wasn't back yet.

* * *

Dear Diary—Joanna asked Andy from the movie store to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Mom thought it was funny and teased her a lot, andDad hardly said a word, but I'm pretty sure I caught him smiling when he thought nobody was looking.

Will they be so awful when I ask a boy to Sadie Hawkins?

* * *

Dear Diary—I can hardly write because I'm shaking so much. All my life, I watched my older siblings and my Dad move faster and be stronger than anybody else. Anybody not in our family. I never really thought about it. I always knew that someday I would be able to do the special things that they can, I just never thought about it all before. It's not the first time I began to be able to do something special, but it was the first time that it left me shaking a lot. It started at school during recess. Everybody just started moving so _slow_. I stopped what I was doing, and just watched. It looked like everybody was trying to push against the wind as they moved, even though there was no wind. I couldn't breathe; everything moved in slow motion, but it wasn't like in books when the narrator says that it was like the world slowed down. It actually did. Or at least I sped up.

I think Dad was keeping an eye out for me, because he swooped down out of nowhere and scooped me up. At least he was moving right, his smile not creeping across his face and his voice wasn't stretching out into a creepy low tones, like when the sound waves slowed down in movies. He took me to Kansas even though Jason and Danielle are at the hospital in Wichita right now. They just had another baby—they're calling him Bobby and he is my nephew. I've never thought the farm was small before. The fields always seemed to go on forever, and I could walk through the corn and never run out of it before somebody dropped from the sky and flew me back to the house for dinner. I used to wonder what it must be like to grow up in a family without Superman for a dad, with older brother and sisters who have been able to fly for as long as I can remember. The farm got a lot smaller when I was able to move quickly. A few steps through the corn took hardly any time at all, making an easy walk through the field take hardly a second. My blood pumped faster—I could hear it in my ears. And my breathing was faster and everything was just moving to fast. I wanted it to stop, no matter how often I've seen Jason and Molly go across the room in a second. Everything was just too fast. And then Dad was there. I don't remember what he said, but it helped. He kept up with me when my legs carried me across the field, and he held onto me when I tripped on a root I hardly noticed as fast as I was moving.

* * *

Dear Diary—Dad got a promotion today, but I don't think he wanted it. Mom's the Editor-in-Chief, so I think people might be talking about favoritism or something. And Dad's so busy anyway. I could never get how he keeps the secrets he keeps and how he manages everything. He's Superman. The world's hero. But he's also my dad, and I can't remember a time that he missed anything really important, any of Jason's piano recitals he didn't make it to or Molly's soccer games or Brigit's plays or picking me up from school.

How is he supposed to be the assistant editor for the International section at the _Daily Planet_, a big job, when he has so much else to do? It will be more difficult to sneak out when he needs to with his own office with glass walls that everybody can see through and notice when he's not there.

I don't know what Mom was thinking.

* * *

Dear Diary—Mom and Dad had their first fight ever, I think. It was about Dad's promotion. I didn't hear most of it because Brigit kept turning the TV up and Molly had turned on her white noise machine.

My parents never fight.

* * *

Dear Diary—Joanna turned fifteen today. Just like for all our birthdays, we went to Kansas to have her party with Jason, with the fields and things to run around in after the party. It wasn't as much fun as other birthdays were. I think Mom and Dad are still fighting, only quieter. I feel bad for Joanna. She opened all her presents—I picked out a DVD for her and wrapped it and everything—but mostly we were just nervous about where things had come to be between Mom and Dad. Jason, I think, was trying to make things happier between everybody. And Molly and her boyfriend broke up right before we left home. She cried and cried and could hardly fly in a straight line on the way here. Jason was carrying me (he always comes to get us when things are ready for parties at the farm) and he kept having to pull her along. He's a great big brother, I think. He's the only one who makes sense right now—Molly's been crying a lot (she's sworn off boys and says she's going to become one of those doctors, the kind on TV who are so good at what they do that they don't need boyfriends), Joanna's been sulking because everybody's upset on her birthday, Brigit is always, always grumpy, and Mom and Dad keep fake smiling.

* * *

Dear Diary—We didn't go back to Jason's for Brigit's fourteenth birthday (yes, it's been that long since I wrote last). Everybody only just stopped being mad at each other. That's not why we didn't go back, though—Danielle's sick. Dad's been in Kansas for a week, calling home every night and talking to Mom on the phone for hours and hours (at least they're not fighting anymore. I don't know what really made them stop, but I'm just glad they're done.) He's helping Jason.

Molly finally got over her ex-boyfriend, though she's sticking to her plan to become a doctor. She went to the library and checked out lots of anatomy books, which make Mom scowl whenever she sees them. Molly won't let me look in any of them

Joanna's been sulking since her birthday. She won't speak to Mom, but I don't know what made it _her_ fault. Brigit's no better now, either. They've become partners against the rest of the family, sitting in the office and watching TV while Mom's too distracted pacing in the kitchen waiting for Dad to call with more news. Molly's been reading her books in her room.

It's always been Jason that I talk to when people are weird or mad at each other. For living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, he just _gets_ people. I can never understand my family. I hope Danielle gets out of the hospital soon so that Jason can explain them to me.

And Sam broke his arm at school yesterday during recess.

* * *

Dear Diary—Alice White, one of Mom and Dad's friends from work, died today. I didn't really know her, but she used to come over for dinner sometimes. Mom and Dad and Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Ron are all very sad about it.

* * *

Dear Diary—Today was Mrs. White's funeral and something happened. The funeral was pretty and all—it was nice outside and the grass was very green—but her nephew, Richard, came to the funeral. Dad and Mom and Jason all got nervous when they saw him, and then later they were all whispering about it, and then Molly was put in charge and the three of them went out.

Mom's been crying a lot since then. Mom never cries. I don't know what's wrong.

* * *

Dear Diary—Today was Jason's birthday, but he wouldn't let us celebrate. I bought him a new tie, but he wouldn't let me give it to him. I've been crying a lot too now.

Molly's been working a lot more often—she told Mom she's been picking up shifts at the theater to keep busy. Mom thinks she has a secret boyfriend. They fight about it a lot.

Joanna and Brigit are still not talking much. Dad says they're giving us the cold shoulder. Even when Mom ordered pizza last night and forced us all to eat together. Except Dad. He was gone again.

* * *

Dear Diary—Molly turned nineteen today. She didn't let us celebrate her birthday, either. Actually, she flew away. Mom cried again, and I cried too. She held onto me—I think she was telling me never to fly away from her like Molly did, but I wasn't listening.

Jason came home before Dad (there was an earthquake that turned into a landslide and he's been away for two days). Mom was still crying. She kicked Joanna and Brigit out of the office and locked herself inside. She's never done that before. Jason made me popcorn and then made me tell him what was going on and then he went after Molly. They haven't come back yet.

* * *

Dear Diary—I've never seen Dad mad before. He got home right before Jason hauled Molly in. From what I heard through their—Jason, Molly, Mom and Dad's—shouting, Molly left because she was sad about not going to Jason's house for her birthday and angry about all the fighting she's been doing with Mom. Mom hated that Molly could just fly away from her like that, and she was mad that Dad hadn't been home to keep her from doing it. Dad was furious with Molly for just flying away and he didn't seem to know what to say to Mom. Jason was mad at all of them. I've never seen him that mad, either.

Brigit and Joanna actually let me sit with them in the office while we listened to everybody else fight.

* * *

Dear Diary—Today was the first-ever family talk. It sucked. Dad made us all sit in the living room and we talked about everybody's feelings. I was pretty close to right about everything from before, but that didn't make it any better. Everybody's still mad, but now everybody knows it.

* * *

Dear Diary—Dad's been great since the family talk, at least to me. He sits with me and he talks to me. It's nice that somebody actually _talks_ to me—only Jason ever used to do that, and he's been gone a lot or sad when he's here since Danielle was sick. He even brought me to visit with his Uncle Rick yesterday afternoon. He's in a nursing home that smells like old people, but he's a really funny guy. I wish I was with him now instead of here—Brigit started hovering last night in her sleep and so now Dad's been giving her flying lessons at the Fortress all day.

* * *

Dear Diary—Molly left for school today. She's going to Metropolis University, which is just across town, but she's living with a friend who goes there too. Mom was really upset that she wasn't living at home, like they'd talked about.

I miss Jason. Everything was better before Danielle got sick.

* * *

Dear Diary—School started again today, and I'm almost happy about it. I get to see my friends every day, and I can pretend to be normal. My family broke over the summer.

* * *

Dear Diary—I'm ten today.

* * *

Dear Diary—I haven't written anything in a really long time, but that's because so much has been happening!

I found out that Danielle was so sick because she was having trouble being pregnant, and so she and Jason were arguing a lot because he didn't want her to try to have more kids if it was going to hurt her, but she wanted more kids. It's all better now, though, because she just had twins—Isabel and Natalie, they're identical!—and I'm their godmother. The doctors had to do a surgery to get the babies out and then make it so that she can't have any more kids, otherwise she was going to die, so she's sad about that, but they have five kids and that's a lot to be happy about, I think.

Jason has been talking to me a lot more since Danielle got better, even if he is _really_ busy with the two brand new babies. I like it—Mom and Dad even let me stay in Kansas for a weekend and play with Kendra, Johnny and Bobby, and make them lunch and things so that Jason and Danielle can take care of the babies.

And Mom and Molly aren't mad at each other anymore, even though Molly still doesn't live at home. Mom closed herself in the office and they talked on the computer (sometimes I get to Skype with Molly, too) for a long time. Mom said Molly's going to be a translator for the police, but for right now she got a job at the Shattered Barrel (the jazz place where Jason used to play piano) as a cook, which means that she can pay for her apartment and be responsible.

And Joanna stopped being angry about everything. She's been playing with me a lot lately and teaching me Kryptonian—everybody else speaks it almost as good as English, but they don't use it often enough that I can learn it just from listening to them. It's not fair. It's better since she's teaching me, though.

Brigit is still mean most of the time.

* * *

Dear Diary—I can fly!

Sort of.

Dad says "these things come over time." But it's really annoying when I can do something—_like fly_—one day but not the next. It's like when Brigit was twelve and some days she could see through things and other days she couldn't and she kept walking into things and she had to stay home from school. Or like when Joanna had freezing breath for two hours and then it never came back.

Everybody else can fly, though. It stuck with everybody.

Jason can do everything Dad can, but that's because of some light thing that Dad did at the Fortress that he won't do to anybody else because we don't need it. He says taking medicine when you're not sick is bad for you.

But Molly can see far away and move really fast and fly and she doesn't get cut or anything ever. And Joanna can fly too, and she has all Dad's abilities with her eyes—the heat and x-ray vision, being able to see really far away and like a microscope. And Brigit's really fast and strong. And she can fly.

I'm tired of being the only one who can't at least fly. Mom says she likes somebody to be earth-bound with her, so I don't complain about it when she's around. But still.

I hate being the littlist.

* * *

Dear Diary—I still can't fly, but I've been able to cool my drinks with my breath for two months now. It's kind of a lame super-power. Uncle Jimmy likes it because he's always drinking iced tea or soda pop, and he likes to have me blow on the surface and make it just as cold as if it had ice cubes in it without putting ice into it (he hates when the ice melts and leaves his drinks watery).

It doesn't even work to keep ice cream cold—it just makes the edges frosty.

* * *

Dear Diary—I can fly now. It's harder than I thought it would be. I have to go to the Fortress with Dad a lot to practice. Going to the Fortress made us notice that I have another 'power,' though. I'm invulnerable, like Molly.

Dad forgot to turn on the heat in the Fortress today, but I didn't get cold, and of course he didn't notice. It was hard to test after that, though, because what if I wasn't really invulnerable? What if I was just 'warm-blooded,' like Mom always says Dad is.

It was easy to tell when I messed up flying, though—I flew straight into one of the big crystal pillars at the Fortress, but instead of breaking my face I broke it. It didn't end up being any problem because the crystal regrew itself after Dad (laughing at me the whole time) pushed a few buttons on the Big Frozen Head Computer.

So now I have to have flying lessons and Dad's going to try to help me get good at pretending I can get hurt. That part's harder than I thought it would be too. I know that I don't have to worry about getting burned or getting a papercut, so I don't worry about touching hot things or being careful with the edges of paper or knives or anything. But what if I grab a hot cookie sheet when I'm making cookies at Pete's house? What if I fall down at recess and I should get hurt but I don't?

This is more hard than I ever thought it would be.

* * *

Dear Diary—Everybody is all over the place right now! Brigit ran away to Kansas and she won't talk to Mom or Dad or even me or Joanna. Jason is being really nice about it, but he called here when she was asleep last night because he's worried about her.

She's pregnant!

Mom and Dad are furious with her, but I think it's more because she ran away than because she's having a baby.

I don't know what's going to happen.

* * *

Dear Diary—I don't think Brigit knows _what_ she's doing. She had her baby—his name is Tiberius—awhile ago, but then she left him, just this week, with Jason and Danielle to go be an actress.

Dad went after her, to finally talk to her about everything (she wouldn't visit with anybody when she was pregnant, so Mom and Dad decided to wait until Tiberius was born). Jason and Mom talked him out of it when she was in Kansas, but now it seems like he was right all along. He didn't come back for awhile, and when he did he was still angry. He told Mom they'd yelled at each other and she hadn't listened to anything and she didn't want to see anybody from the family for the rest of her life. (They don't know I could hear what they were saying in the kitchen through the vents in the upstairs bedroom that used to be Molly's.)

At least Jason and Danielle are excited to have Tiberius living with them. Danielle wanted another baby or something, I guess.

* * *

Dear Diary—I am starting high school tomorrow, and so I think I'm probably too old to keep a diary anymore.

* * *

Dear Diary—Kyle and I are officially going out! I know I said I wasn't going to write anymore, but I can't help it. If I told Mom and Dad or anybody they'd make fun of me.

I've known him since kindergarten and he's always been really nice and today he told me that he likes me and he wants to go out with me. We're going to a movie tomorrow night with a bunch of other friends, so Mom and Dad won't know I'm actually on a date.

* * *

Dear Diary—The movie was lame, but I got to hold Kyle's hand the whole time. *SQUEE!*

* * *

Dear Diary—Pete's been my best friend forever and that's the only reason I'll probably talk to him again in a year. I don't know what's wrong with him—maybe his parents are fighting again—but he's been super weird. We're going on the band trip to Disney World in Florida together in a month, so I hope he's not a dick then. A whole week stuck with him while he's being awful and moody is not my idea of fun, and Kyle can't go because he's not in band.

* * *

Dear Diary—Florida was fine. We played the music for I Can't Wait to Be King from the Lion King in a studio and we had passes to all the theme parks and we had a lot of the time to just do whatever we wanted. We even got to march in a Disney World parade (it was crazy hot, so everybody else was sweaty and miserable, but I kind of liked it).

Pete was back to normal on the trip. I think it was because we were away from his parents. Now that we're back home he's being weird again.

Date with Kyle—write more later!

* * *

Dear Diary—You were stolen, did you know that? You ought to come with security.

Joanna thought she'd be all smart and go through my stuff while I was at work (if those pages were still in place, there would be a record of all my lists of the places I applied to before I finally got a job at the Chinese place on the corner (hell if I can spell it), and all the lovely, emotional details of my breakup with Kyle). She ripped out a whole five pages from last year I think she probably tore them out because last year I mostly wrote about her.

She graduated from college awhile ago and she's been doing internships and tests and law school because she's going to be a lawyer, but she was trying to do art for fun, too. She's been living with Bruce in Gotham (his house is sure big enough), and he didn't mind buying her art supplies because he thought it made her happy. So she had this whole painting studio going on, and she had a gallery pick up a few of her paintings and there was a show and everything—but then Dad and Bruce started fighting about wasting time and overextending and yadda yadda. It's all over now, so it doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Joanna's really good at art. She's always painted and done photography. Now she's prettymuch finished with law school and she'll be a lawyer, but who knows what she'll end up actually doing. I don't think it matters so much, but Mom and Dad have had this grand plan in mind for her since forever—she's the smartest of us.

Jason is an organic farmer who puts half his time into helping other farms around Kansas become more sustainable. Molly works as a translator at the UN. Brigit doesn't speak to us, but she's a very famous actress in LA. Mom and Dad have both won tons of prizes for their writing, Mom runs the second largest newspaper in the world, Dad is Superman in his spare time. It's a lot to live up to, especially when everybody's been saying you're the smartest of the bunch your whole life.

I think that's why she stays in Gotham so much. Uncle Bruce lets her do her own thing (like the art) on the side, doesn't make her be on task studying to be a lawyer all the time. She's been talking about chucking the lawyer thing and the art and opening up her own bar, just to make Mom and Dad angry—I think she should go for it, then there'd be less pressure on me! (And she's my favorite sister and I think she'd be happier running a bar than running trials.)

Yeah, that was way more than I meant to write about the past year that Joanna stole out of here.

Take that, Joanna—I wrote more about you to fill up those pages you stole!

I swear if you rip these pages out (and if you're even reading this I am GOING TO BE SO PISSED AT YOU) I'll fly to Gotham and kick your derriere!

* * *

Dear Diary—JOANNA WUZ HERE!

(you're my favorite too, B!)

* * *

Dear Diary—Joanna stole you again. Obviously. At least she only kinda vandalized you this time.

Exciting things are afoot! Dad has officially retired from the _Daily Planet_ because he's been trying to balance the International Editor thing with the Superman thing for years and it's just not working. He's never home anymore, which makes him and Mom both grumpy, and he's tired all the time, which is a feat in and of itself.

SO, now that he's retired he's going to have all this free time. Sorta. Anyway, the he's taking me on a tour of Europe!

He agreed to write a blog thing for the _Planet_ about the sites and whatnot as a well-traveled tourist as a sort of parting thing. And he's taking me because I'll be on my summer break and as a graduating from high school present. (Pete is so jealous!) It'll also be good for the blog, he says, to be able to write about an _inexperienced _traveler's opinions on the stuff we're doing and the places we're visiting and stuff.

The bonus here is that the _Planet_ is funding part of the trip and I'm thinking I'm going to blog about it, too—maybe it'll turn into a career? (Who knows—I'm at that in-between place for high school and college where everybody wants to know my major and I have no idea.)

* * *

Dear Diary—Becca's out of the country and she didn't bring you along. So I'm stealing you again.

Really, B, you need to hide this thing better.

* * *

Dear Diary—I'm going to point out that it is pointless to hide things when a good portion of the family can see through anything I'd hide it in. So there.

Stop stealing my diary, it's the principle of the thing.

(See blog for summary of AWESOME summer abroad—yes, I'm talking to you, Jo, as you seem to be reading this just as much as you'd be reading a blog…)

* * *

Dear Diary—You are running out of pages.

Also, I've replaced you with a blog. Because everything's online now. You gotta keep up with the media, man.

* * *

SHE TOTALLY LEFT THIS BACK PAGE OPEN! JUST FOR ME? perhaps

**EAT AT JOE'S**

(J was here!)

—hearts, kid


	4. Chapter 4: Brigit Kent

I never meant to sever ties with my family. Who really does, when it's all said and done? They are my blood, the only people who truly understand me—and in my case, that's more truth than cliché.

When I was thirteen, I realized I was the least of my siblings. We all had a lot to live up to from the beginning—two award-winning journalists in top positions at one of the largest newspapers in the world for parents. That was all compounded by a brother who brought sustainable organic farming to a rural community, which in turn brought new life to the surrounding farming community; an older sister who worked for the UN; a younger sister who decided she was going to be a lawyer when she was six and later represented Batman; and a youngest sister who made more in a year's advertising on her blog at the age of seventeen than I made from my first contract in Hollywood.

Joanna was the smartest and the prettiest. Molly was the most practical. Becca was the funniest. Jason had the biggest heart. What did that leave me to be? The only thing I really found a talent for was acting in school plays. For a while I had Riley. He was my rock; I didn't need to be anything because I fit into his world perfectly even if I didn't fit into my family. But he was older, and he was in the military, and his unit shipped out. And he died.

Maybe it was stupid, but it was my senior year. I was almost done with high school—we figured nobody would notice 'til well after graduation. And by that time we'd be together in an apartment, engaged. We decided to get pregnant. Then he shipped out, and died. I was alone and suddenly looking the fool in the most cliché way—stupid, promiscuous senior.

More than anything, I was embarrassed. How do you tell your dad that you got knocked up? How do you tell _Superman_ that you got knocked up? Especially when he's your dad? I ran away.

Jason was always the perfect older sibling. He was a buffer between us and our parents, understanding that adult point of view but relating to us as 'one of the kids.' He was also conveniently halfway across the country away from them, where I could get big and pregnant and refuse to see them, and he would ask them to stay away for my sake. And Danielle loves kids; she was great, helpful.

I don't think I've ever cried as much as I did between the time that Riley died and the time that I gave birth to Tiberius. Yes, I named him Tiberius. It's a ridiculous name, but Riley loved "Star Trek" and he always joked that he would name his son Tiberius. Jason calls him Jim, to keep with the "Star Trek" theme but not have to call him Tiberius.

I stayed with them at the farm for a month after I'd given birth. Leaving was the hardest thing I've ever done. But I had to. The fact is that I have to do something to live up to the rest of my family, and all I did from childhood to the end of high school was thoroughly mark myself the black sheep. I didn't get perfect grades. I had acne. I didn't like school. It took me forever to learn how to fly.

After all that, the running away from home and the leaving my son, I couldn't go back on it for anything. Not when Dad came to my pathetic apartment in LA, not when he called me every day to try to convince me to come home. Not when all my sisters and Mom tried to convince me to come home. Not when Jason tried his roundabout, guilt-tripping way of getting me to visit Tiberius more often.

There is one thing that I'm good at. That one thing is acting. If I must be the least of my siblings, I will at least be the best in my chosen field. Being known for not speaking to my famous parents isn't the best reputation, but it is a reputation. And I am, at least, a good actress; Dad never did try to contact me again after I told him I hated that he was an alien.


End file.
